Benjamin tenOever: Going Viral

Professor, Microbiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Age: 36

kerry grens
| 3 min read

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© LAURA BARISONZIMicrobiologist Benjamin tenOever wanted a fun way to get his microRNA-focused lab members interested in genes upregulated by interferons, proteins released by host cells under pathogenic attack. So he created Game of Clones. The single-elimination tournament, akin to a basketball bracket and broadcast over Twitter, pits two genetically altered flu viruses against one another to see which one fares better in a mouse. “It’s a little bit just for fun, but it also has a purpose,” says tenOever. “What Game of Clones has done is pulled [interferon-inducible] genes out of the woodwork.”

TenOever’s interest in interferons’ roles in infection goes back to his days at McGill University. During an undergraduate microbiology class, tenOever attended a lecture about viruses, which ignited his interest and set the course for his research trajectory. “It was one individual teacher who taught with such passion it was impossible not to fall in love with viruses.” TenOever decided to stay at McGill for graduate school and joined the lab of John Hiscott to study how cells respond to viral infection.

He and another student in the lab teamed up to figure out that two kinases—IKKε and TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK1)—flip the “on” switch in a viral host’s innate immunity by activating two interferon regulatory factors.1 “Even though [the paper] didn’t provide a lot ...

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Meet the Author

  • kerry grens

    Kerry Grens

    Kerry served as The Scientist’s news director until 2021. Before joining The Scientist in 2013, she was a stringer for Reuters Health, the senior health and science reporter at WHYY in Philadelphia, and the health and science reporter at New Hampshire Public Radio. Kerry got her start in journalism as a AAAS Mass Media fellow at KUNC in Colorado. She has a master’s in biological sciences from Stanford University and a biology degree from Loyola University Chicago.

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